Classical Interviews
Wagner at the Proms rememberedSunday, 08 September 2013
This summer, the Royal Albert Hall became the centre of the Wagnerian universe. No one was going to ignore Bayreuth, where Frank Castorf‘s new Ring gave plenty of fuel for column inches; but somehow the singers and the orchestra seem to have got lost there among all the apparently uninterpretable stage paraphernalia. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Mezzo-Soprano Joyce DiDonatoSaturday, 07 September 2013
She’s the Kansas mezzo-soprano whose ruby slippers have now taken her across the globe, singing in all the great opera houses, but who has never lost the common touch. She’s not a diva, she’s a “Yankee Diva” – a contemporary creature who would never dream of throwing a tantrum or cancelling at short notice. She's Joyce DiDonato. Read more... |
10 Questions for Conductor Marin AlsopFriday, 06 September 2013
Marin Alsop may be one of America’s leading conductors, with stints as music director of the Colorado, Eugene and Richmond symphony orchestras, not to mention positions at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, and of course her current roles at the head of the Baltimore and São Paulo State Symphony orchestras, but apparently none of that is as important as the fact that she’s a woman. Read more... |
Rhapsody! How to programme a Hollywood PromSunday, 25 August 2013
Fingers on buzzers: which piece of music at this year’s Proms boasts a percussion section including glockenspiel, xylophone, five pitches of cowbells, car horn, taxi horn, anvils, revolving door noise, smashing glass, bubble-wrap-popping, pistol-shot and elastic band? OK, here’s a clue: it’s by Scott Bradley (1891-1977). Who? Read more... |
10 Questions for Semyon BychkovSaturday, 20 July 2013
By the time silence descends on the Royal Albert Hall at five o’clock in the afternoon for a performance that will end six hours later, Semyon Bychkov will have been rehearsing for 60 hours. It breaks down into four days of orchestra readings, with tutti and sectional sessions for each act, then two days of the singers and a pianist, followed by six days of everybody together. And all for one performance of Tristan und Isolde with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Read more... |
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: The Last InterviewSaturday, 22 June 2013
On Christmas Day last year, we lost Richard Rodney Bennett, a composer and performer who bridged the worlds of classical, jazz and film music with a suave nonchalance that came from inner confidence and a belief in hard work. He and I met for lunch in the summer of 2012 at The Fountain Restaurant in Fortnum & Mason. Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Conductor Sir John Eliot GardinerSaturday, 30 March 2013
It’s only fitting that Sir John Eliot Gardiner should be celebrating his 70th birthday with a concert in the Royal Albert Hall. That it should be a nine-hour marathon of a concert is not only fitting, but entirely predictable for a musician who has always kept one eye on the next and biggest challenge. Read more... |
Q&A Special: Conductor Sir Simon RattleWednesday, 30 January 2013
Sir Simon Rattle (b. 1955) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (est. 1986) have been together from the beginning. Founded by period-instrument musicians eager to run their own affairs rather than play obediently for conductor-managers like Christopher Hogwood and John Eliot Gardiner, the OAE invited Rattle to conduct a concert performance of Idomeneo in that first year. Read more... |
10 Questions for Amateur Musician Alan RusbridgerMonday, 21 January 2013
Had we but world enough and time... A new book by the editor of the Guardian makes it clear quite how many hours in the day it takes to run a national newspaper in the digital age. There is the unyielding nature of 24-hour news, while the internet relentlessly asks grave questions of print media’s business model. Some editors respond to the job's demands by keeping obsessively fit, and then there is Rusbridger’s alternative guide to stress-busting: the piano. Read more... |
10 Questions for Opera singer Rolando VillazónMonday, 17 December 2012
Few singers provoke more debate than Rolando Villazón. His off-piste projects - from his Romantic exploration of the Baroque to his spell as a talent contest judge - have been much discussed over the years. By comparison, there's something strangely calm and conventional about Villazón's two latest projects: a new album of Verdi on Deutsche Grammophon and a performance of John Copley's La Bohème at the Royal Opera House. Yet you'd be foolish to ignore either. Read more... |
Pages
inside classical music
latest in today
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
All We Imagine as Light review - tender portrait of three wo...
Documentary maker Payal Kapadia scored this year’s Cannes Grand Prix with her debut feature film, All We Imagine as Light, ...
Album: Hibernacula - Three Cane Whale
Since their eponymous 2011 debut, Three Cane Whale have kept it small without losing scale. A trio of Spiro’s Alex Vann, Get The Blessing’s Pete...
Jeff Young: Wild Twin review - a box of tricks
The writer, performer, and lecturer Jeff Young’s latest, Wild Twin, tells – ostensibly – the story of his barefoot, Beat-imitative...
Album: The Innocence Mission - Midwinter Swimmers
A sycamore tree is described to an appaloosa horse before it is mounted to ride off to visit a friend. The thread used for sewing evokes a map...
Witches review - beyond the broomstick, the cat, and the po...
From James I’s campaign to wipe out witchery to the feuding sister sorceresses of The Wizard of Oz and the new film musical ...
EFG London Jazz Festival round-up review - youth, age, and t...
Jazz music crosses, mixes and unites generations, and the 10 concerts I’ve seen at this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival (out of more than 300 in...
First Person: singer-songwriter Sam Amidon on working in Din...
Walking in the morning from my Airbnb along the road in West Kerry...
EFG London Jazz Festival 2024 round-up review - from Korean...
November can be a month to hunker down for the onset of winter and its weather, and where better to do that than in one of the myriad venues...
All's Well That Ends Well, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse revi...
"All’s well that ends well". Sounds like the kind of phrase a guilty parent says to a disappointed child after they’ve been caught...